This opening event of the Valeska Gert Visiting Professorship held in the Winter Semester 2024/25 by Israeli choreographer Saar Magal explores the three monotheistic world religions from a philosophical and literary perspective: What are the powers of imagination that sustain the order and reality of the world? What happens when they lose their hold on living tradition? What brings change or leads away from it? 

The event will feature a presentation by Magal, followed by a conversation between the artist and movement analyst Jan Burkhardt and journalist Dr. Elisabeth Nehring. The opening event will take place on Monday, 14 October 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the Clubraum of Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10 10557 Berlin.

Saar Magal creates dance theater and opera performances, and collaborates with actors, dancers, singers, scholars, visual artists and musicians. Her work strives to enable the convergence of artists, audience, objects and materials on stage to create new contexts for movement and narrative. As Valeska Gert Visiting Professor, Saar Magal will devise together with the students of the MA Critical Dance Studies at FU a project of performative research in preparation for a new interdisciplinary piece on the topic of “sacrilege”. 

Dr. Elisabeth Nehring is a writer, dance and theatre critic and dramaturge. Since 1999 she has been working as an independent journalist for various radio stations (Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur, WDR, SWR, NDR, BR, MDR, Deutsche Welle, and others) as well as print media (tanz, Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, TIP Berlin, etc.). She has produced numerous publications, live reports and radio features on cultural and cultural political topics, including reports about dance and performance festivals all over the world (with a focus on Eastern Europe and the Middle East).

Jan Burkhardt is a performer, choreographer and mentor in the field of contemporary dance, music and interdisciplinary art. His work focuses on hybrid, intertwining connections between art, society, humans and non-human beings, based on the conviction that embodied existence, knowledge and engagement produce transformative and sustainable effects and make complex, empathetic (co)existence possible. In addition to his work in the independent scene, he is a regular guest lecturer at the School of Dance and Circus (DOCH/Uniarts), Stockholm and at the Danish National School for Performing Arts (DASPA), Copenhagen. Since 2020, he has held a part-time professorship in contemporary dance practice in an artistic context at the Cologne University of Music and Dance ( HfMT).

The event is in English, admission is free.